As if the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice “recount” isn’t a big enough mess, It appears that the Wisconsin GOP has been engaged in widespread fraud surrounding their attempts to recall democratic senators. Inexplicably, the Republican Party of Wisconsin had relied heavily on people they hired from out of state to collect signatures against democrats, even paying to house these folks in hotel rooms. In all cases, they paid by the signature. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? The decision to pay out of state people when there are plenty of unemployed folks that reside in those senate districts who may actually be invested in the outcome of these recall elections makes no sense at all.

But the story gets even better....

In a press release issued today by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller states “”The overwhelming evidence clearly shows a pervasive pattern of election fraud committed by the shady out-of-state organization hired by Republicans to collect recall petitions,” and “Thousands of Wisconsin citizens fell victim to lies and misinformation spread by the circulators, and the papers submitted by this operation contain a river of omissions and wrong information.”
...
Miller continued: “We believe that when the facts are reviewed, the GAB will throw out thousands of flawed signatures because they were fraudulent or defective. The vast depth of this misconduct calls into question the legitimacy of every signature collected by these circulators, and shows that the GOP effort failed to gather the valid signatures needed for recall elections.“
...Kennedy Enterprises received nearly $100,000 from the Republican Party of Wisconsin to circulate recall petitions. Kennedy owns a tarnished reputation based on past offenses in Colorado.

Some of the cases and examples of election fraud outlined in the formal recall challenge of GOP petitions to be filed this afternoon include:

Senate District 12: Of the 534 people contacted who had signed the petition, 9.2% indicated they were misled into signing the petition or asserted they had never signed.

Senate District 22: Of the 225 people contacted who had signed the petition, 6.6% indicated they were misled into signing the petition or asserted they had never signed.

Senate District 30: Of the 372 people contacted who had signed the petition, 8.6% indicated they were misled into signing the petition or asserted they had never signed.

Affidavit of a World War II veteran from Green Bay who was misled into signing a recall petition. Upon learning he had been duped, veteran called the sheriff to get his name removed. When confronted, the circulator claims he will remove the name, but a later review of the petitions reveals the veteran’s name was never crossed off.

Many affidavits attesting that Circulator Sherri Ferrell – who gathered nearly 3,000 signatures in two districts — gathered signatures on Indian reservations claiming petitions were to support “schools,” “Democrats,” and “tribal rights.”

Affidavit of voter in Senate District 22 attesting that circulator John Prijic claimed the petitions were for work to be done on a local park.

Affidavit of voter in Senate District 30 attesting that circulator Annette Lord claimed the petitions were to recall Republican Senator Cowles.

Affidavit of voter in Senate District 30 attesting that circulator Richard Madrill claimed the petitions were to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

DePula details still more bullet-point allegations in his coverage, and notes that a "formal challenge" to the petitions will be "filed on behalf of the Democratic senators" this afternoon. A press conference, he ads, will be held this afternoon at 4:15pm local time to discuss the challenge.

For some reason, we suspect that these detailed charges of fraud will not make their way into the fake Fox "News" canon of fake outrage over (usually) fake election-related fraud charges.

As of last night's deadline, petitions for recalls of 6 Republican and 3 Democratic state Senators have been filed with the state. They are now pending confirmation by Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.) to assure the appropriate number of legal signatures on each have been collected as per the rule of law.

Given the unprecedent number of likely recall elections, the G.A.B. received approval from a Dane County, WI court to extend the time usually needed to verify signatures, and to consolidate all of the recall elections once petition signatures are approved as legitimate, on a single day, July 12.

The recalls against the Republicans come as part of a public backlash in response to the Republican-led state legislature's controversial --- and potentially illegal --- move to pass Gov. Scott Walker's legislation removing many of the rights for citizens to collectively bargain with the state. The three Democratic recalls are being carried out by Republicans in response to the 14 Democratic Senators who fled the state earlier this year in an attempt to block the legislation by denying the Republicans the quorum needed in the Senate for voting on laws related to the budget.

Eventually, after long insisting the union-stripping measures were budget-related, Republicans took those provisions out of the budget bill, and passed them separately by a simple majority in a non-budget-related bill without Democratic participation. The law, quickly signed by Walker, is now being challenged in state court, as Democrats have argued that it was passed in violation of the state's public meeting laws requiring 24 hours public notice before such bills are discussed in conference and voted on by the legislature.

The challenge to the bill is thought likely to make its way to the state Supreme Court, where Walker and the GOP enjoy a 4 to 3 majority --- pending the outcome of the current Supreme Court election "recount". If the currently unverified results of that election were to be reversed, allowing challenger Joan Kloppenburg a win over the incumbent Republican Justice David Prosser (Walker's former colleague, to whom has promised his fealty), the balance of the court would be shifted away from Walker and the GOP.

How can we change this type of massive repug election fraud if people willingly and happily open their wallets and give koch and the others their monies.

Remember: The dollars you spend are the only votes you have that are double counted and tracked with a fool-proof double-entry accounting system.

And please remember: The dollars you spend are the only votes you have that you can accurately and transparently verify have been cast and received.

Thanks for letting me post Brad - but are people here ready for a meaningful dialog about change?

Like every other progressive social action in America, it took more than bloggin' to achieve and people actually had to coordinate economic boycotts.

Unfortunately, the lies your history teacher taught you probably didn't include these facts.

The superblogs are failing us in many ways - just another version of atrio's "101st keyboarding brigade"

Using blogs to raise money isn't really that helpful if we continue to give our money to home depot, walmart, applebees, the organizations and brands identified above, and what appears to be the majority of global corporations that dominate most consumer markets.

spot-on, dredd, BUT THEY BUY ELECTIONS WITH THE MONEY WE VOLUNTARILY GIVE HEM!!!!!!!!!

Why is it impossible to get any "liberal/progressive" blog that follows these issues to do the next right thing...

Our only choice is to stop funding the economic terrorism?

Brad, you know what it is like to be dismissed on critical issues - how can be expect change when elections are bought with the money with give walmart, at&t, applebees, home depot, staples, johnsonville, koch industries, tavern league of WI (go figure that one out, DUH!), and virtually every other major global corporation?

kewl, glad you do your part. I try to too; however, you actually can't fully boycott at&t beecause they and spring own the entire network for dsl and telephones - everyone else rents from them!

But, boycotts are meaningless unless the public participates and acknowledges it is happening. The koch brothers literally don't care if liberals or progressives don't buy their crap as long as we don't talk about it as an organized boycott.

Boycotts of a few are not actually boycotts and even if there are thousands; the media will ignore it and the wealthy can absorb reduced profits now as long as they prevent us from widely talking about boycotts.

Thanks molly

So back to my question: How do we share experience, strength, and hope if we can barely have a dialog about election fraud, the repugs and media want to make this about voter fraud, and the elections are bought and paid for by the dollars we give walker's puppetmasters?

Though I live on the West Coast and am not directly effected by Wisconsin state politics, the repercussions of what's going on there have me checking for updates almost daily.

Just wanted to say that of all that I've read --- from both Progressive and Conversative sources --- the Bradblog has by FAR offered the clearest, most-detailed and well-sourced information.

Your coverage of this astonishingly audacious scandal isn't just reaching those who live outside Wisconsin's borders. It's also providing the citizens of other states with information which encourages us to get involved in insuring the validity of our states' elections.

Poverty reduces any donation to show my gratitude to a pie-in-the-sky idea: the publication of a book with a title along the lines of "Preventing Election Fraud: A Citizen's Guidebook of How to Get Involved, What to Look For & What to Do About It as Described By Citizens Who Fought to Save Wisconsin" ... ?

(Whaddya mean "that's a mouthful" ... ???)

If priced @ $10 --- and provided of course that its authors ever found any spare time at all in which to write it! --- such a book could very well not only encourage citizens to help preserve democracy but would hopefully enrich its authors as well.

Question is will any one be prosecuted...imprisoned for fraud...will Holder do any thing but backpedal and make excuses for not prosecuting...or will the people finally grow a spine for themselves...? I blame Bill Clinton for this "Executive Escape Clause"..he should have prosecuted Reagan and Bush SR., etc., for the Iran-Contra political corruption and federal law-breaking...the GOP was so "grateful" that they "escaped" prosecution...they impeached Clinton...now, the GOP are running a hate-filled, race baiting, deliberately deceitful, obstructive, destructive campaign against Obama...GOP "gratitude" is killing the American dream

Question is will any one be prosecuted...imprisoned for fraud...will Holder do any thing but backpedal and make excuses for not prosecuting

For what it's worth, this is a state issue, concerning a state election, with grievances filed by the Democrats under state law, charging violations of state statutes.

So where I have no quibble with your suggestion of Holder and Company's lack of spin, in this case, barring information I'm currently unaware of, this matter would seem to be well outside Holder and the DoJ's jurisdiction.